


Catalyst

by exbex



Series: You're My Favorite Journey [3]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Fourth of July, Grey-A, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-27
Updated: 2016-07-27
Packaged: 2018-07-27 03:07:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7601038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/exbex/pseuds/exbex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Check Please! belongs to Ngozi Ukazu</p>
    </blockquote>





	Catalyst

**Author's Note:**

> Check Please! belongs to Ngozi Ukazu

Derek expends a great deal of energy on trying to cultivate his chill. He’s pretty laid-back naturally, but the level that he attempts to project to the world is much higher than what occurs readily. So when Kate Poindexter has him squirming in her kitchen while she’s serving him tea and cake, he should probably feel a lot less okay with it than he actually does. As it is, Derek finds himself really, really liking this teasing, but good-natured woman. She’s chirping him like mad but putting him at ease simultaneously, and her eyes are sparkling as if she, yes, knows exactly what she’s doing and loving every minute of it.

Nursey decides that he loves her. This is a good sign.

“Looks like Will is back.” They’re standing at the kitchen sink, Derek washing up the dishes (and even though Kate had him flustered, he still managed to muster enough charm to get her to let him help with the clean-up, though the soft smirk she wore said that she knew exactly what he was trying to do) and Kate drying them, and Derek follows her gaze out to where Dex has pulled up in a slightly beat-up pickup.

Derek’s heart races, just a little. Dex is just a little bit tan from the days spent on the boat, and his hair is messy, and his muscles…oh god. When Derek glances up at Kate, he bites his lip, because she’s giving him the most knowing look.

Everything slows down when Dex walks through the door, eyes widening. Derek is suddenly very, very aware of what a collision of worlds this looks like; Dex in his work clothes, smelling a bit like the salt air of the ocean, a battered thermos held loosely in his hand. Dex has been getting up every morning, filling that thermos with strong black coffee, while Derek has been rolling out of bed at least two hours later, heading to his job at his local bookstore/coffee house in his v-neck t-shirts and skinny jeans, brewing chai and lattes while Dex is pulling in crates of lobsters. Dex coming home, to this modest house every night, eating Kate’s home cooked meals with his brother and dad and maybe some cousins and uncles, while Derek gets off work and spends an hour or two writing, then drifting into the brownstone whenever, catching his parents, one or both, a few times a week.

“You’re-you’re earlier than I thought,” Dex’s face is turning pink.

“Why don’t you go get cleaned up Will. That’ll give us some time to finish these up,” Kate suggest gently, which seems to shake Dex and Derek out of their stupor. The silence that ensues could be awkward, uncomfortable, but it’s not, and Derek decides, once again, that he really, really loves her. She is the absolute, quintessential, cool mom.

Derek nearly trips over nothing when Dex reappears in a grey tee and faded jeans. Somehow they find their way out to the pickup, taking a slow, meandering drive to a park, where they’re sitting side-by-side in a silence that, for all its familiarity, has lost its comfort due to the few short weeks they’ve been apart since the end of the spring semester.

“Your mom’s ‘swawsome,” Derek breaks the silence as he shifts to face Dex.

It coaxes a smile. “Yeah, she’s pretty great.” Dex runs a hand over his face. “I’m sorry I wasn’t home when you showed up,” he says. “Um, there’s a fireworks show tomorrow, and a picnic thing. Kind of small, but, you know…”

Derek reaches a hand to rest on Dex’s leg, lightly, praying that Dex turns into his touch. He’s good at backing off, reading the cues for the times that Dex isn’t feeling it, and he’s okay with it, more than okay with it, but it doesn’t take much to figure out that Dex is self-conscious about the differences between the worlds he and Derek inhabit, about Derek coming into direct contact with Dex’s reality, and if Dex doesn’t lean into him now, he’s afraid that it’ll mean that Dex is embarrassed rather than that Dex just needs that boundary. 

Dex reaches one hand to lay over Derek’s.

“I’ve missed you,” Derek says, barely above a whisper, hoping. 

Dex flashes him that smile of his. “Yeah, I’ve missed you too.” He turns toward Derek then, pulls him in for an embrace, surprises Derek with a kiss that’s full of intent. He laughs a bit as he pulls away, his hands still cradling the back of Derek’s neck. “You look so good.”

“Yeah? You should see yourself Will.”

Dex smirks. “We’re saps.”

Derek grins and leans in to trail kisses along Dex’s cheek. “Just wait til I read you some of the new poems about a certain redhead.”

“Oh yeah? What’s their name?”

Derek shoves a laughing Dex. “I can’t believe I even missed your chirping.”

Dex goes quickly from smirking to an actual smile. They don’t come easily or often for Dex, who is more prone to the furrowed brow that means serious concentration, and Derek is always left just a little breathless. “I can,” he replies. “Otherwise you wouldn’t make it so easy.”

“I’m an open book, huh?”

Dex’s eyes narrow slightly in concentration. “Sometimes. You have a lot of pages though.”

It’s Derek’s turn to let a smirk shift slowly into a smile. “That’s kinda poetic, for a computer programming guy.”

Derek half expects a blush to creep up Dex’s neck and face, but it doesn’t show. Dex just shrugs, lets his look linger for a moment longer, and then pulls his seatbelt around him and turns the ignition. Derek follows suit with his own seatbelt, listening as Dex talks about the town and the week ahead. The spell hasn’t been broken.

**

“People are looking at us Dex.”

“They’re looking at you,” Dex murmurs, nudging Derek’s shoulder with his own and passing another slice of watermelon over to Derek. Derek bits into the slice, relishes the watery sweetness before replying. “Seriously?”

Dex smirks and squeezes his knee reassuringly. “It’s not that. Pretty sure it’s because you look like you stepped right out of the pages of GQ or something.”

Derek frowns and looks down at his clothes. “I don’t dress like that.”

“I mean your face, you dork. You look like a model or something, not so much like the average person.” He says it matter-of-factly, rather than flirtatiously or teasingly.

“Oh.” It’s a small town that only bleeds into other small towns, not a college town that’s hooked to a city like Boston, not the streets of Manhattan, where people might brush shoulders but aren’t so likely to take second looks. He looks at Dex, as he finishes his slice. Dex seems fairly comfortable here, but he still doesn’t quite blend in. It’s the same way at Samwell, and Derek wonders if he’s reading too much into it. Maybe that’s just Dex, the way he carries himself. Or maybe Dex just hasn’t quite figured himself out yet, just like everyone else their age.

**

Derek yawns so hard he can hear his jaw crack. It’s been a good day, but long, and a part of him has wanted to get Dex alone all day, if for no other reason than to just drink in the sight of him. He shakes his head a bit, wonders how much time he has left in his life to indulge so fully in his hopeless romantic side.

Dex stretches out on the bed and beckons him over. Derek climbs onto the bed beside him settles comfortably, thinking of how seldom he sees Dex outside of the practical, focused mode that seems to be his default setting. It’s not a bad thing; it’s what makes Dex such a good defenseman, what helps Dex juggle his classes and hockey and everything else, it’s what makes Dex, well, Dex. But Derek finds himself wondering if Dex ever wishes he could just let go, sometimes, of all of it, if he could somehow take some of the weight off of Dex, if Dex would even want to let go of it. Maybe he shouldn’t think like this; maybe he’s trying to change Dex. Maybe it’s what makes the two of them work, balancing one another out.

“I can see the pistons going in your head, Nurse.”

Derek shifts closer and Dex trails one hand up and down his arm. “Have I told you how good you look, Will?”

He expects Dex to respond in the affirmative, maybe with an eyeroll, but he manages to surprise him. “Not in so many words.”

“Well, I’ve been looking at you all weekend, staring at your muscles. And your freckles.”

“You see those all the time, Nurse.”

“Yeah, well, it’s been weeks. You ever go weeks without tasting some of your favorite foods?”

Dex raises an eyebrow, and Derek can tell that he’s trying to suppress a smirk. “You’re comparing me to food?”

Derek ignores the jab. “Vanilla soft-serve ice cream. Nice and cold. Butterscotch syrup, thick and sweet. Chocolate sprinkles, to make things interesting.”

Dex laughs, his eyes crinkling. “You’re weird.”

“I love you too.”


End file.
